Sleeping With Ghosts
by ambertiger666
Summary: Season 1 AU, Keith and Veronica go missing. one shot


**A/n:** I read one too many angsty fics and listened to the Placebo song "Sleeping With Ghosts" and what started out as a perfectly sane story completely warped. I was probably inspired the most by the story "Catharsis" by fickedame (though she doesn't know that) and though I didn't set out to try and imitate her writing style (I read the story on LJ like 4 or 5 days ago when it was 1st posted…my s/ns crystalizedsoul over there), in retrospect I think that's what ended up happening (seriously, originally this was going be a season 3 AU until I listened to that song. I blame Placebo!! And really good angsty fics I which main characters die or disappear). I realize, though, in my case the format I wrote it in is more or less nonsensical, instead of self-explanatory. So basically you have to 1st know this isn't occurring in order, and that things the characters believe in one chunk, might not necessarily be what they believe in the next. Oh and also, Logan and Veronica are soul mates for the purposes of this fic. Just because …_soul mates never die…_(metaphorically, of course) is a big part of the song. And I wanted this to be a literal translation of the song.

**Sleeping With Ghosts**

"Look I know I totally blew you off when you asked me the exact same thing, but could you maybe use me as an example and stay away from the case?" She asks it as if there's not a hope in the world he'll listen to her. She's partially right. He's gobbling up her voice like a man dying of hunger, so he's definitely listening to what she's saying. But there's no way in hell she can get him to agree to it and they both know it.

Still, she tries on valiantly. No one could ever say she ever went down without a fight.

"It's just…" she's panicking, he can tell and he wonders if he's finally going to hear the three little words she can never quite seem to get her vocal chords wrapped around. "It's just…imagine if I came home one day, and you weren't there?" She finishes the sentence with tears. Damn woman always knew how to get his hackles raised. And how to get him pacified.

Oh, and how to scare him shitless with just the tone of her voice, and a few choice, ambiguous words. "**One day**, Veronica?"

"Logan! You know how it is! Can't you just for once listen to reason and let the authorities do their job?"

_You mean like you did_ would be the customary response, but he's fed up with his role, so he skips the obligatory volleyball match that would set off, and moves on. "No," he says and blinks back tears as they disconnect. He doubts it'll be the last time he hears from her.

……

The two of them disappear, and for a year they're an urban legend.

Cliff was the last to see Keith.

Logan suspects he is investigating their disappearance much like Veronica investigated Lilly's: secretly, and patiently, and away from prying police eyes.

Many think the Mars' are in the witness protection program or are running from the law, though why, exactly is always up for debate. Some think Logan (or even Duncan, he heard rumored once) had them killed off when she turned him in for murder.

Logan is convinced of the first theory's truth.

But Duncan was the last to see her.

Logan knows he knows something, knows it in the way he shuffles and the way he glowers and the way he sometimes looks like he might just start crying and beating the shit out of the nearest passerby, but never manages to do more than dream on in his anti-depressant sleep walking.

But secretly, Logan's afraid he knows nothing, and that the something Duncan thinks he knows involves Logan and jealous rage and notes that were never found, so Logan never asks him about it when his eyes turn towards him. Or crinkle up every time someone mentions a pool house. Maybe the guy has a thing for Ryan Atwood, Sean guesses one day. Maybe that's the real reason Duncan acts like an asexual robot these days.

Logan prays whatever it is, it's that simple.

……

He doesn't know if she's a ghost; he never asks, and he never looks directly at her.

But whatever she is, whether real or not, he can't help falling in love with her words.

Sometimes she seems to know everything: the passage of time, the secrets of the universe, EVERYTHING. And those times she tells him she is probably dead.

Other times it's as if she is only as old as the day he last saw her. And then it's as if everything's normal, and they're just two teenagers dating, only the dates only occur at night, and he has to be asleep to meet her.

His favorite are when she is as old as he is. For most of these she speaks of the present coherently, with her old tone of voice perfectly, and he can almost believe she's alive somewhere waiting for him. She says they'll 'disconnect' when he's waking, and he thinks of the conversations like phone calls in his head.

It's those times he refuses to talk to her as if she's never coming back.

The time he woke up in the hospital after being beaten up by Weevil and his crew, she was the old Veronica tending to her friend's wounds. The day he was interrogated for the second time about killing a girl he loved, she came as an alternate reality version of Veronica: alive and well and by his side, if only in his sleep.

The day the Hearst rapist was caught, she was a bitter and broken Veronica, lamenting her failures.

….

He's a week past eighteen when they find the body of Keith Mars deteriating under the Coronado bridge. When Cliff first calls him he sounds hesitant (and dare he say teary?) and his words are garbled and unclear, but Logan makes out 'water' and 'body' and thinks they've finally found his mother.

But then Cliff passes the phone over to some lawyer or policeman who's standing with him, and tells him over the phone that his nightmares always do come true.

And then he sees Lamb driving up in the distance.

And then an hour later he's in some shit hole interrogation room and they're asking him where Veronica is, and whether they're going to find her dead or alive.

…..

In his sleep that night she calls them epic and holds him close. And when he can't stop saying he's innocent, she always says she believes him.


End file.
